Other men have been using their low but beguiling voices into making the African man abandon his self. After the partition, his religion, language, lifestyle, and even ways of thinking were taken from him. When other men
told him that his religion was evil, he echoed evil and abandoned it.
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3 comments:
The article suggests that the African's problem can be solved if he "goes back to his roots". I suspect that the author makes this position, because by going back to his roots, the African will be able to establish a unique identity that will give him pride on the world stage.
However, I don't see anything wrong in the African borrowing ideas and practices from other cultures if they will help him maintain his economic independence. In fact, I doubt if the ideas that the African had centuries ago will be useful in a world that has radically changed since. And really, if the African borrows ideas and practices from an eclectic range of cultures and combines them together, he is actually creating a unique culture from the fusion of all these ideas and practices - one that also has the added benefit of helping him in his quest for economic independence.
"And really, if the African borrows ideas and practices from an eclectic range of cultures and combines them together, he is actually creating a unique culture from the fusion …….".
Shoko Loko Bangoshe
Sir, I think he is actually creating a unique type of cul-fusion or is it confusion?:idea:
To buttress this, I realise that the more cultures I mix with and learn the language to the point of comprehension and writing, the greater the war when I need to draft a simple document in English, vous comprenez? This I believe is the same when it comes to cultures. Nigeria is a conglomerate of cultures which it is obvious we have not been able to blend. A lot of our children live abroad for a long period of time, they come back bringing other cultures to add to the state of confusion, sorry cul-fusion, we already have.
The British and the French for instance, indoctrinate their citizens into their particular cultures from tender ages. It doesn’t matter where they later go, they remain who they are. Nigeria has not been this fortunate considering the cul-fusion the British left us with in merging diverse ‘sovereign entities’ together. We probably should have reasoned together then and opted for the country to be indoctrinated into one of the three major cultures. We could choose to all become Biafra Republic or Arewa Sharia Land better still Odua Peoples’ Republic.
I hope it is not too late to be delivered from confusion and have a real cul-fusion.
Ciao
However, I don't see anything wrong in the African borrowing ideas and practices from other cultures if they will help him maintain his economic independence. In fact, I doubt if the ideas that the African had centuries ago will be useful in a world that has radically changed since. And really, if the African borrows ideas and practices from an eclectic range of cultures and combines them together, he is actually creating a unique culture from the fusion of all these ideas and practices - one that also has the added benefit of helping him in his quest for economic independence.
Shoko, Ajala trafu
The bold part of the quote above refers to the reality we've been trying to drum about in the ears of the so-called Africanists who think the best for the continent is to go back to the ancient times and get its identity, spiritually socially and politically, in its pure and unadulterated form. The question here is how ancient? One millennium back when already something like Islam and Christianity was with us or when? Even if there is such a past that we can refer to how original to African any world view could ever have been because then the rules of immigration where not demarcated as they are now and the question of race and ethnicity was never an issue in constructing spiritual, political and social identities.
The rest of the quote refers to the reality among culturalists in both anthropology and what later became social anthropology that all cultures borrowed and are borrowing at whatever level. The West borrowed Christianity among other finer rules of etiquette and knowledge, from Middle-East to use them as platform for spiritual unity and political identity and it payed it well. The Turks and the Indians of the Mughal Empire borrowed Islam and other things from the Middle-East too and it paid them well.
Here in African the high point of our history in the times of the Ghana, Shongai and Mali empires were with a so-called borrowed religion from the Middle East.
It is my conviction that it is not when we discard everything some among us regard as foreign, from ideas to practice, that we as Africans or Africa as a political unit can develop to a greater height. It is the way of the world, Isaac Newton said he was not a genius when asked, but rather confessed to the truth that he only was clever enough to stand on the shoulders of the geniuses and as such he was seen to be most manifest than the rest of US the remains of African geniuses.
Khalilurrahman
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